6 ways Sandy could influence the election

You read the Tweets and you take your choice. Hurricane Sandy is an advantage for:

– Obama, because it blunts Romney’s perceived momentum.

– Romney, because it suppresses early voting.

– Obama, because it allows him to look presidential.

– Romney, because it puts Obama on the hot seat.

– Obama, because it reminds people that Romney wanted to privatize FEMA.

– Romney, because it disrupts the vital Obama ground game and could actually reduce voting of all varieties.

Let’s look at each of these in more depth.

1. Whose momentum? If you look closely at the polls, Mittmentum had largely dissipated while East Coast skies were still blue. The race has settled to a remarkably stable point — tighter than skinny jeans nationwide, with Obama maintaining a swing-state advantage that looks difficult to overcome. Example: Politico’s latest battleground tracking poll released Monday morning showed a one-point edge for the President, who had trailed by two a week ago.

2. Early voting. Obama has, by all accounts, rolled up a big lead in the early voting so far, so this is a concern for the Obama camp, but not a huge concern because of the luck of the draw. Most of the Sandy-affected states either don’t have early voting (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey) or only absentee with limitations (Virginia) or aren’t swing states (Maryland). Possible exception: North Carolina, but much of the early voting is already done and Sandy is having a relatively small impact in the state.

3. Looking like a president. Well, yes. Make no mistake about that (as Nixon said), he is the president. And presidents lead in crises. Obama has the ability to lead, and to look like a leader. Obama spoke to the country early Monday afternoon, and he certainly didn’t hurt himself — particularly when he said, “I’m not worried about the election right now. I ‘m worried about families … the election will take care of itself next week.” Romney bringing relief supplies on the campaign bus is a pale substitute and points up just what an advantage the presidency is in this situation. Look for Obama at FEMA Monday afternoon and evening, and as soon as he can, on the scene of the devastation. Katrina taught all future presidents a hard lesson. Speaking of which…

4. The hot seat. If the federal response is botched, it could hurt Obama fatally. That’s why he must pay close attention on this, and make sure he pulls every lever he can to deploy aid quickly, consistently, efficiently. This is what being the man in the arena is all about. The stakes couldn’t be higher for him and for the country. He’d better hope his bureaucrats learned something from Bush’s bureaucrats.

5. Disaster-relief disaster? Romney did say in a primary debate in June that FEMA should be abolished and its responsibilities either sent to the states or privatized. Like many of those primary campaign statements, he’d like to have this one back. But it initially looked more like a gotcha than a tactical problem — unless he compounds it. Which he shows signs of doing. Given the opportunity Monday morning, he did not walk back from it, telling Huffington Post that states “are first responders and are in the best position to aid impacted individuals and communities.” Not sure how that would get paid for at the state level.

6. The ground game. This is by far the biggest question mark, because it a race as tight as this one, the Democrats simply must get out the vote. If this storm had come even three or four days later, the impact on Election Day could have been much greater, but it could still be significant. One thing to remember: While it’s axiomatic that Republicans simply vote, come hell or, yes, high water, without much prodding, in this case simple logistics could affect the GOP vote as well. In that respect the storm may be a double whammy for Democrats since it could force the GOP to do more on the ground than it normally would.

What does it all mean? It’s too soon to judge the overall impact, because it depends on things we don’t know yet — the level of destruction, and the way Obama and the government perform. The election is Obama’s to lose, but it has been for a long time. Probably the storm’s biggest impact is to negate final-week TV assaults because ad buys will scale way back as nobody wants to see an attack ad sandwiched between hurricane horror. It will push the status quo forward into the final weekend. You can draw conclusions based on what you think that is, but the swing-state polling would indicate that’s good for the incumbent.